[RPM] Cultists of the Cold Ones (Apocalyptic Cult of the Path of Nonexistence)

[Icelander]

Hermana (Sister) María Teresa Romero Borja (October 31, 1963; Bogotá, Colombia) is a well-read, well-educated Catholic nun from an upper class family in Bogotá, who had long ago lost her faith, but kept her vows and continued ministering to the poor and downtrodden from the Adoratrices convent in the historic Candelaria district of Bogotá. Her work involved seeing the worst of the world, in a neighbourhood filled with prostitution, crime, violence and endemic drug use, but Sister María Teresa had been gradually losing her faith throughout the violence and misery of the 1980s and 1990s in Colombia.

Ironically, as the violence and wasted lives around her got worse and ever more senseless, Sister María Teresa had cause to question her earlier private convictions about a materialistic universe. As crime rates rose and kept rising, it seemed insufficient to explain the horrors with mundane causes and sociological statistics. Tales told by the marginalized, the people of the streets and the night, were steeped in superstition, but suggested an awful truth nonetheless.

As Sister María Teresa ministered to the victims and perpetrators of the vast crime against humanity taking place day by day, street by street, firefight by firefight, needle by needle, in the brothels, avenues and alleyways, she felt, at times, the presence of Evil around her. As predatory criminals and the police that should have protected the people from them sunk to new depths of cruelty, mostly against the innocent instead of each other, Sister María Teresa could dimly sense an unseen force toying with them like ants.

Around the turn of the century, Sister María Teresa experienced a loss more personal than her daily misery, as her best friend within the convent disappeared and was found five months later, brutally murdered. The straw that broke the camel's back and filled Sister María Teresa with fury against the uncaring, unhelpful, imperfect God she had served all her life was when it eventually came to light that the murderer was another nun from the convent, the prudish and judgmental Sister Leticia, apparently motivated by disapproval by the victim's 'sinful' association with and empathy for sex workers and drug addicts among her flock.

Now, Sister María Teresa is still nominally a Catholic nun in good standing, but her one abiding desire since that day, sixteen years ago, when she confronted the revelation of the petty tyranny and small-minded hatred of Sister Leticia that extinguished the sole light of her existence, has been to end the charade of divine benevolance and stop the torment of this vale of tears, not just for her, but for everyone. She sees clearly now, you see. There are devils and if there are devils, there is a God. And that God is the worst monster of them all.

By now, Sister María Teresa has spent the last sixteen years exploring the dark and mysterious forces she sensed around her, researching the occult and esoteric while pretending outwardly to be still the same stalwart minister to the poor as before, retaining her habit and her vows. She has learned terrible secrets from the whispers of spirits and wrestled forbidden lore from entities of vast and inhuman powers.

Along the way, she made contact with fellow students of the occult, carefully building a network of contacts and a few trusted allies. Eventually, she found a like-minded mentor and took to the creed of the Keepers of the Last Hearth with all the fervor of a convert, discovering again the intensity of religious feeling she felt in her forgotten childhood.

What I want to know, is, if she has three favored students and confidants who assist her with secret rituals, who are they?

Fellow nuns?

Former prostitutes, drug addicts or both, encountered in her ministrations?

Someone else?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Icelander

While true certainty about the past is impossible, all the evidence suggests that at some point in human history, the supernatural world and our world were more closely intertwined. One PC at least believes that there were societies of powerful magical beings living among humans before the start of recorded history and while his specific theories are outré, the idea that, for example, fey folk and humans might have coexisted at some point is not considered implausible by the most learned occultists the PCs know.

However, most theorists aware of the occult believe that as human cicilization grew more complex and technology advanced, the connection with occult forces decline. By the 19th century, the supernatural was mostly superstition, as in our world, perhaps with very occasional exceptions in Places of Power and/or in relation with truly special individuals or times. Few, if any credible reports of the supernatural exist between 1901-1990 and the PCs believe that there might have been no events at all from 1889 to 1980. And before the year 2000, supernatural phenomena was so rare in most of the Western world that the US might see only a few incidents in the entire decade from 1990-2000. Only in the 2010s has the pace of incidents accelerated to the point that it seems incredible that no uncontroversible evidence has been publicised.

That means no real continuity with any ancient and esoteric organization of the past. There are religious orders older than this, yes, and even various fraternal organizations, but even while magic might have been theoretically possible in the 18th and 19th century, the vast majority of people involved in the occult even then were not practising effective magic. And a century is enough so that all the people in authoeity have grown up during times when magic was purely supersitition and been taught by others who knew the same, so even rituals that could have once had power were being performed by people who probably didn't expect any effects.

And aside from religious practices, most occult traditions and organizations in the Western world have grown irrelevant, except as social clubs, over the 19th and 20th century. So any cults and occult conspiracies in my campaign are new, though some of them might have roots in a conscious revival of various older traditions.

Hmmm...could some long-lived, or immortal, supernatural beings have been there all along, in concealment or passing themselves off as human?